Number 13 Looks Just Like You
by nikkilittle
Summary: An eighteen-year-old girl with a gun strapped to her thigh refuses "The Change" after graduating from high school.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1: "One Pill Makes You Small"

My approaching high school graduation weighed heavily on my mind as the last few weeks of my senior year slipped away. "The Change" that all high school graduates had to undergo the summer after graduating was a compulsory rite of passage that gave us all artificially beautiful bodies and faces in a limited number of types. There were only twelve "models" to choose from for either sex. I didn't know if "The Change" was plastic surgery, full-scale body sculpting, or even the transference of the brain from the original body into a robotic body. I had no idea. I was dreading it, and I didn't want to do it. The government's justification was that "The Change" made people immune to common diseases and stopped the appearance of aging. People still aged, though. Average lifespan remained unchanged. I was suspicious of the supposed benefits. There were effective medical treatments for almost everything, and people still aged. It was positively weird to see people who looked young suddenly drop dead. Occasionally, someone would die almost immediately after "The Change" had taken place. Those incidents were always hushed up, but high school students had ways of finding out information that was supposed to remain secret. The government wanted us to think that everyone lived to a ripe old age after "The Change." I thought only of how to get out of it.

I had a small circle of friends, and they all sort of looked alike even though "The Change" had yet to take place. I thought that it was because of those pills that everybody received the first of every month in the mail. The pills came in boxes clearly labeled for boys, girls, men, and women. You were a boy or girl before "The Change" and a man or woman after "The Change." I had always balked at taking my pills, and my parents finally gave up on me. My friends all took the pills every morning as they were supposed to. The girls were all thin and slight-figured, and the boys all looked like athletes. I suspected that the girls' pills all contained appetite suppressants, and that the boys' pills all contained steroids. Who knew what was in the adults' pills. I, myself, did not look like any of the other girls, and that was partly why I had no desire to undergo "The Change."

In a school full of thin, slight-figured girls, I was soft and rounded from head to foot. In a school full of short girls, I was medium height. In a school full of bony-faced girls, I had chubby cheeks and a baby face. In a school full of girls who had twig-like arms and legs, I had muscular arms and legs. In a school full of girls who had A-cup breasts that were barely visible, I had C-cup breasts that jiggled a little and moved when I moved. In a school full of girls who had straight hips, my hips stuck out and were soft and fleshy. In a school full of girls who had no ass, I had an ass that bounced and jiggled as I walked down the hall. I was the only girl in the school who had a squishy roll of fat right below the waist. It really showed when I wore pants and was sitting down. When I wore pants and sat down, I was also the only girl who had flesh spill out over her belt at her sides. In a school of size 4 waifs, I was a chubby size 12. And yet I felt beautiful when I looked at myself naked in a mirror. Everything was soft, smooth, and continuous. No bones sticking out or even visible. No sharp edges. No hollowed out spots. I had full, rounded cheeks on my face. My breasts were fleshy and had a pleasant give when I poked them. My hips pressed in when I touched them. My butt gave me a very nice cushion to sit on. I had a soft, thin layer of fat on my stomach above my waist which I thought would make for a very nice ride during sex. The roll below my waist looked like it was supposed to be there. When I turned sideways in the mirror, my breasts had a nice bit of projection and tilted upwards. My stomach stuck out just a little below my breasts, and the roll below my waist jutted outwards a bit like the prow of a ship. It rounded upwards and outwards from my crotch and formed almost a shelf right below my belly button. Was I supposed to think I was fat because of this? I poked my index finger into my prow and watched it sink about an inch. I turned slightly in the mirror and examined my profile. It was heresy, but I liked my chubby body and chubby face. I thought that I was prettier than any of the available models for girls which I saw daily, of course, in the form of the adult women all around me.

I looked at my face in the mirror. Curly, burnished copper hair down to my shoulders and freckles in a swath across my nose and cheeks. I did not need "The Change," I felt, to be beautiful. I was already beautiful. I was so glad that I had had the good sense not to take those pills that came in the mail every month. What I saw in the mirror existed only because I had refused the pills. The pills killed girls' appetites. At school, while the other girls always ate a salad at lunch, I ate a full plate lunch like the boys. The girls stared in horror every day as I ate my lunch, but I didn't feel guilty. I have an appetite. I feel hunger. I eat. And I never feel guilty.

One pill makes you small. Every day as I surveyed the slightness of the other girls in the school, I thought of Alice in Wonderland. Those damn pills had robbed the girls of what nature had intended for them. Ditto for the boys. Even in the chess club, there were no slight, bespectacled, intellectual geeks. There were no intellectual types in the school at all. Not even the teachers. All we did was memorize.

One pill makes you small. And stupid.

End of Chapter 1

This story is based on the Twilight Zone episode "Number 12 Looks Just Like You." Viacom owns the copyrights.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: "A Circle of Friends"

My circle of friends consisted of two boys and three girls. The boys were not my boyfriends. The old tradition of dating in high school had vanished with the old order. In the new order, people started dating in college or in the trade schools. College graduates married college graduates. Trade school graduates married trade school graduates. That's just the way it was. The two boys were chess club geeks, but you'd never be able to tell by looking at them. They looked like athletes, the same as all the other boys. I had wanted to join the chess club and play on the chess team, but the chess club advisor told me that the chess club was boys only. I was baffled as to the reason why.

Fenwick - we called him "Fenny" - was the best chess player in the club and the team captain. It was his job to evaluate the strength of the other players and set the order of boards on the chess team. Fenny played "first board," the second strongest player played "second board," and so on. Fenny was openly in lust with me and let me know many times that he wanted to see me naked before I went in for "The Change." I had to keep reminding him that the child sex abuse laws would put both of us in prison if we were to take a peek at each other. After people had gone through "The Change," it was extremely rare for them to commit crimes of any sort, but the laws were still on the books, and I did not want to take any chances. My eighteenth birthday was in the last week of school. Fenny had his eighteenth birthday three weeks after graduation. I adored Fenny for his irreverent spirit and mischievous playfulness.

Mark was a schlub at chess. He was a real-life "Droopy Dog." He worried about everything and especially "The Change." He didn't want to go through with it. He was a believer in the conspiracy theory that "The Change" was actually about replacing people with robots. He claimed that the old movie "The Stepford Wives" was a warning about the future. I tried to console him by explaining that "The Stepford Wives" came out long before the technology existed for "The Change," and that there was no relation between the two. Nothing could convince Mark. He was genuinely terrified.

Amy was my best friend. Short, thin, and completely curveless, I sometimes wondered if Amy ever looked at me with any jealousy. Every time I asked her if she wished she had a body like mine, she would playfully grab the roll below my waist and ask, "And get stuck with this?" If I were wearing pants at the time, she would also grab the flesh spilling over the belt at my sides and ask, "And get stuck with these?" Every now and then, however, I would catch her scanning her eyes up and down my body with a wistful look on her face. I think she was a bit jealous of the attention that my body attracted from the boys. Amy claimed to be looking forward to "The Change." I remember that I used to nag her that she was too thin, but she mindlessly ate salad for lunch just like all the other girls. If she had had a little flesh in the face, she would have looked like Doris Day, a singer and actress from the old days.

Michelle was in my French class. Sometimes the boys sang the old Beatles song to her. She was pretty in a subtle way. She was another freckle-faced redhead like me. Her body was like almost every other girl in the school: slim with only slight curves. Her face was narrow and oval and her cheeks a bit hollow. Her nose was thin and sharp. Of softness and roundness there was no hint anywhere. She complained constantly that her butt hurt in the hard wooden chairs that we all sat in. I teased Michelle that her butt wouldn't hurt if she'd just eat like me at lunch. Michelle always gave me the same deadpan reply: "I'd have to go out and buy a whole new wardrobe." Michelle was fascinated by foreign languages and foreign cultures in general. She wanted to be a high school foreign language teacher in the future. "I can sure do the job better than these mindless page-turners here!" I had a deep suspicion that after "The Change," Michelle's ideas about how to teach a foreign language class would all disappear. All the classes in my high school were an unimaginative forced march through the pages of textbooks that seemed deliberately designed to be as mind-numbing as possible. "We're being trained to be parrots," I thought.

Lynette was a short, slim brunette with a face like the famous actress Vivien Leigh. She was the happy-go-lucky one of my circle of friends. Happy-go-lucky except where "The Change" was concerned. It wasn't the loss of her famously beautiful face that disturbed her. It was the undeniable fact that no ordinary citizen knew precisely what "The Change" did to us. Our overseers, an unelected council of scientists, technologists, and philosophers who ruled the entire world as a single state, knew what it did to us. For reasons that only they knew, they had elected to keep everyone else in the dark. Lynette did not want to undergo any procedure without knowing precisely what it was going to do to her body. I had no idea what Lynette wanted to do in the future. I suspect that Lynette herself didn't have much idea, either.

End of Chapter 2

This story is based on the Twilight Zone episode "Number 12 Looks Just Like You." Viacom holds the copyrights.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3: "The First Consultation"

The first thing I did after graduation was ride the bus to the Sheriff's office downtown and apply for a concealed carry permit for an antique Glock that my father had had for decades. It was a nasty and even dangerous-to-carry weapon that, nevertheless, I knew I would need in the near future. I intended to carry the Glock with me to my first consultation to protect myself from any attempts to herd me into a procedure room. Normally, "The Change" involves four consultations. The first consultation is simply an informational meeting where you get to see all the models available and are given a whole bunch of brochures to read. Real useful. Like we teenagers don't already know what models are available from the adults we see walking around everyday. The second consultation is the one in which you pick your poison. Your model. The choice you make in the second consultation is what you're stuck with the rest of your life. If you don't make a choice, the doctor will make the choice for you at the third consultation which is when the procedure is done. The message is clear: "Make a choice or we'll choose for you." The fourth consultation is a follow-up to make sure that everything is working out as intended.

The laws on the books allow the use of lethal force in self-defense against kidnapping events. Using physical force to get me into a procedure room met the legal definition of kidnapping. If any Change Medical Center employees attempted to drag me into a procedure room, I had already made up my mind that there would be blood. I intended to wait until the second consultation when you are supposed to choose your model to announce my intention to refuse the procedure. I hoped that the employees in the Change Medical Center would have the good sense to allow me to leave unencumbered. No one had been known to refuse before. If there had been previous incidents, they had all been kept hidden from the public. Surely somewhere in the world, I thought, somebody had already refused.

My initial consultation about "The Change" was scheduled on the second Monday after graduation. I paced and stewed the entire time before the meeting. My idiot parents were completely oblivious to my feelings and chattered excitedly about all the new clothes I would be getting to fit my newly slim body. I hadn't told them yet about my intention to refuse as I knew that it would be useless and only involve me in unnecessary conflict with them. My parents informed me that everyone got jitters and that in the end everyone gave in. "It'll all work out! You'll see!" said my mother with the excitement of a game show contestant who had just won a bucketload of money. I kept my riposte to that in my head. Somebody had to be the first to refuse.

The dreaded day came, and I shuffled off to my appointment with all the enthusiasm of a draftee showing up for boot camp in the middle of the Vietnam War. I wore a dress that came down to my knees. My glock was strapped to my thigh with a custom-designed easy-to-remove safety attachment to prevent accidental firing. I had practiced reaching under my dress to yank out the gun and fling the safety attachment away. I had a sharp blade strapped to my upper left arm also within easy reach. My dress was dark blue heavy cotton which kept my two weapons out-of-sight. The glock had an ancient, 30-bullet cartridge in it. Automatic fire. My "Change Guide" was a psychotically cheerful and perky young man who reminded me of a flight steward from a PanAm television commercial. A smiling Norman Bates on speed. I wanted to scream "Shut the fuck up!" at him, but I knew it would be futile in the face of his nonstop, artificially excited chatter. In the bad old days, somebody would have assumed he was gay and killed him for it.

Norman Bates on speed took me into a chamber containing the models which reminded me of an old-style wax museum. The walls and ceiling were glossy black and reflected the bright light. I was supposed to choose one of these department store mannequins to be my new body for the rest of my life. I wanted to gag. All twelve of the available models were bony-faced fashion model types with a cinched-in wasp waist and breasts that looked like implants. They all had scrawny asses. I was supposed to choose one of these. Of course I already knew what models were available from all the adults walking around all the time. The wax museum tour was totally unnecessary. My "Change Guide" acted as if this would all be new to me. My lack of enthusiasm must have been written all over my face. My fantasy of killing him, apparently, was not.

"Which model are you leaning toward?" Norman Bates on speed asked.

"None of them," I answered. "I have a prettier face than any of these Barbie dolls. I have a better figure, too."

Norman Bates on speed looked at me in astonishment. "You're fat! It's obvious you haven't been taking your morning pills. Can you even bend over to tie your shoe laces? I'd think you'd be excited to have a trim, beautiful body!"

At that moment I decided to call him "Richard Simmons." It was better than slitting his throat, I suppose. "Your definition of beauty and mine are quite different," I said. I did not elaborate. I bent over and untied my shoe laces. Then I retied them. I didn't have to hold my breath. I glared at Richard Simmons.

"Everybody gets jitters. Just take your time." Richard Simmons had enough brain cells left to know to get lost. I looked around at the twelve models in glass cases under bright lights. They looked like giant, creepy Barbie dolls. The models room looked like something from the old television show "Rod Serling's Night Gallery." I walked out the exit of the room and strode swiftly and purposefully down the hallway as if I had completed everything I was supposed to do. Nobody tried to stop me. "This is too easy," I thought.

One day later I received a certified letter informing me of my appointment for the second consultation.

End of Chapter 3

This story is based on the Twilight Zone episode "Number 12 Looks Just Like You." Viacom holds the copyrights.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4: "Michelle"

Michelle was the first of our group to undergo "The Change." At her first consultation, she chose her model and arranged to have the procedure done at her second consultation. Was she really that eager? Or did she just want to get it over with? Michelle was delicately pretty with her thin face and sharp features. Emphasis on was.

When I saw Michelle after "The Change," I, of course, didn't recognize her until she told me who she was. I looked down to see the obligatory name tag that had the full name, citizen ID number, and a radio frequency ID (RFID) tag embedded into the plastic and used for tracking purposes. I stepped back to get a good look at her face. It was a face that I had seen thousands of times before and was nothing special. This procedure was being done to make people beautiful? Michelle was prettier before "The Change." A bit of flesh on her face and on her body would have done far more for her. It occurred to me that instead of making Michelle choose a model, the doctors at the Change Medical Office should have made Michelle one of the models.

I asked Michelle if she were still planning to go to college to become a foreign language teacher. Yes, she was, but her indifferent reply sent a cold chill of foreboding down my spine. She had been so enthusiastic and full of ideas of how to do a better job of teaching a foreign language. I asked her if she had ever written down a list of all the ideas she had about teaching foreign language classes.

"No, I never wrote them down," she said. "I never thought that they were important enough to write down."

I nearly froze on the spot. This wasn't the Michelle that I remembered at all. It was as if all the enthusiasm for teaching and joy in life in general had been sucked out of her. The empty, blank look on her face betrayed little in emotion. She responded with the programmed politeness of a department store sales clerk. Her friendliness was mechanical. There was no warmth at all. Michelle reminded me of the teachers at the high school.

I exchanged a few pleasantries with Michelle and then turned my back to walk away. I walked away very quickly. I didn't want her to see me cry. I never talked to Michelle again after that. We would merely nod to acknowledge each other. After awhile, we didn't even nod.

End of Chapter 4

This story is based on the Twilight Zone episode "Number 12 Looks Just Like You." Viacom holds the copyrights.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5: "The Second Consultation"

This time I was full-blown paranoid. I took the glock with me to the second consultation in the thigh holster again, but without the add-on safety clip. Fully loaded with 30-bullet clip. Automatic fire. No safety. Pull trigger and spray. I had already made up my mind that I was willing to kill 30 people to avoid being dragged into a procedure room. I was willing to die. "The Change," I thought, was nothing less than the death of the personality. I strapped a blade to both of my upper arms, within easy reach. I could not think of an alternative to going in to my appointment. In a world ruled by a single always watching government, there was no place to run to. The only alternatives were submission and suicide. A few days later, Mark found a third alternative that I hadn't thought of. I hopped on the bus, sweated out the ride, and held my breath as I walked into the Change Medical Office.

As I walked in, suddenly the notes of an old hippie anthem flashed into my fevered brain.

Gimme a head with hair

Long beautiful hair

Shining, gleaming,

Streaming, flaxen, waxen

Give me down to there hair

Shoulder length or longer

Here baby, there mama

Everywhere daddy daddy

Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair

Flow it, show it

Long as God can grow it

My hair

I looked in the glass window at my flowing, curly, shoulder-length copper-red hair. Kaleidoscopic images of howling teenagers having their heads gleefully shaved by waltzing Change doctors and their hair replaced by wigs flashed before my eyes. These bastards wanted to take my glorious copper hair away from me! All the models were blonde or brunette.

My hair like Jesus wore it

Hallelujah I adore it

Hallelujah Mary loved her son

Why don't my mother love me?

Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair

Flow it, show it

Long as God can grow it

My hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair

Flow it, show it

Long as God can grow it

My hair

The dancing, grinning wigs faded from my view and I blinked. One of the doctors was waiting for me. No change guide this time. No Norman Bates on speed. No Richard Simmons. Thank Heaven for small favors!

"You will not need your weapon," said the doctor. "No one will force you to submit to the procedure. No one has ever been forced to submit." The doctor looked old and had obviously never undergone "The Change."

I started to open my mouth as I gazed in astonishment at the doctor's aged face. I had never seen anyone in person who appeared to be old. I stifled a chuckle that the doctor did not know about my two blades. So the government did not know absolutely everything!

"The doctors who actually carry out the procedure are not permitted themselves to undergo 'The Change' as it has been determined that it undermines their skill in the exercise of their profession. We usually keep out of sight. We already know that you are going to refuse. I am here to explain to you the procedure for refusing."

"There's a procedure for refusing?" I asked.

"Yes, there's one thing that you must do if you refuse the procedure. I take it that you already know the advantages of 'The Change' and have determined that the negatives outweigh the positives."

There were two big positives of "The Change." It made you immune to almost all diseases, and you appeared to stop aging although your lifespan remained the same as if you had never undergone the procedure. The first positive was no longer such a big advantage as there were now effective medical treatments for almost every problem. The second positive was the one that, in the end, caused all ordinary citizens to submit. I had visions of everyone having some hideous portrait in a hidden closet that appeared to age as their bodies stayed the same. A Portrait of Dorian Gray for every adult. A piece of one's soul residing in a hideous splash of paint. Not me.

I was fascinated that the doctor admitted that there was a negative to "The Change." It interfered with the practice of his profession. I had long suspected such a thing by the behavior of the adults all around me. "The Change" interfered with the exercise of independent judgment.

"There is one thing that anyone who refuses the procedure must do. You must allow your body to be scanned for the creation of a new model. I can't remember the last time that a new model was created. We have had only twelve for women as long as I can remember. The scanning room is at the end of the hallway and hasn't been opened for ages. I have a key and can take you there to see what it looks like. There is no glass bed to lie on as there is in the procedure rooms. You stand up in what looks like a futuristic tanning booth. You must strip completely naked for the scan to proceed. That includes your socks or nylons. We need to clean and disinfect the scanning booth and inspect all the scanning equipment. The scanning procedure does expose you to a tiny amount of radiation. It's about equal to a full-body x-ray. Nowhere near the level of radiation that you would be exposed to in an old-style hospital. Those old x-ray machines were barbaric. As you can see, I'm old enough to remember the bad old days. We even let people die in hospitals if they were unable to pay for treatment. Those days are gone forever. The people who believed in such practices have been permanently removed from the levers of power."

It dawned on me that this doctor was one of the "Planners," at least at the local level. I decided that it would be wise to keep my mouth shut. It was actually quite a privilege to meet one of the hidden "Planners." It seemed reasonable to assume that none of them had undergone "The Change." Was "The Change" really about creating a pacified, quiescent population who did not challenge political authority? I suspected that it was. I followed the doctor down the hallway to the scanning room for the creation of new models.

He turned the key. As he opened the door, we were both met with a blast of dust in the face. "Good Grief!" exclaimed the doctor. There were cobwebs everywhere in the room. Old computerized equipment that appeared almost antique filled the room. The walls were dark wood paneling and all the computerized equipment appeared a dank, dark metallic blue in the dim light spilling in from the hallway. The doctor flipped the electric light switch near the door and, after a brief, momentary hum, the overhead fluorescent lights from a different era flickered on.

"We're going to need to do a thorough cleaning of this room before we bring you in for the scan," said the doctor. "We'll send a certified letter to your address informing you of the scan date," he said.

"No email for you?" I asked.

"We tend not to place much faith in electronic communication. For the really important stuff, we still prefer to do things the old-fashioned way."

"You mean the computers are all hacked and there's no privacy in email, don't you?" I said.

The doctor only smiled.

End of Chapter 5

This story is based on the Twilight Zone episode "Number 12 Looks Just Like You!" Viacom holds the copyrights. Partial lyrics to the song "Hair" by the Cowsills copied under the fair use doctrine.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6: "A Quivering Rabbit"

I had thought that there were only two alternatives to going in to my second consultation and announcing my intention to refuse "The Change." The first and obvious alternative was abject submission to the procedure. That was, I felt, the worst of all options. The other option was suicide. I actually thought death was preferable to submission. Mark found a third alternative that I had not thought of.

Mark walked into the downtown Change Medical Center carrying a gym bag. The gym bag contained the makings of one molotov cocktail, nine left-over hand grenades from the Korean War, and an ancient, modified Soviet AK-47 machine gun with one partial clip. The molotov cocktail went into the entrance area right in front of the door. The AK-47 came out and everybody visible in the black-and-white security camera footage ran. One hand grenade went into each of the eight procedure rooms. Unfortunately for Mark, two of the grenades failed to explode, and one of the procedure rooms went undamaged. When armed security guards came charging on the security camera footage, Mark ended things by shooting himself. The only person hurt in the incident was Mark himself. I knew that Mark was a timid, quivering rabbit who had no desire to hurt anyone. Mark's third alternative was to sell his life as dearly as possible.

The news media, of course, reported the incident as a terrorist attack and hinted at shadowy rebel groups that no one had heard of and knew nothing about. I knew what was happening, of course. The news media was softening up the public for a witch hunt. I knew that it would be only a matter of time before the police showed up at the homes of every teenager who had known Mark well. That included me. Those teenagers who had already undergone "The Change" were skipped over. Michelle, for example, was not bothered by the police.

The police came to interrogate me one day after the attack. Sitting on the sofa in my parents' living room, I did my best to be polite.

"What is your connection to Mark Carson?" The three police officers glared at me as a digital recorder on the coffee table made a permanent record of my answers.

"Classmate and friend." I answered. Short and to-the-point.

"What signs did you observe that indicated that he might be planning something violent?"

"None. There were no recent changes in his behavior." True.

"Do you really expect us to believe that?"

"Do you really think that Mark's friends have perfect foresight?" My mother poked me in the leg. First warning.

"What changes in routine did you observe in his behavior in the last few days?"

"There you go again. Assuming something right in the question." My mother gave me a sharper, more insistent poke this time. "There were no changes in Mark's routine in the last few days that I was able to observe." True.

"What subversive literature have you seen Mark read?"

I laughed aloud. "You mean books? Since when have you seen any teenager carry anything besides a school textbook? Those morning pills turn everyone into idiots." Mom tried to pinch my leg. Apparently it was a surprise that my thighs were solid muscle.

"We won't get anything from her," said the police officer who appeared to be in charge. "Where is her bedroom, Madame?"

The three police officers went into my bedroom and took photographs of my bookcase and desk. They dumped all my drawers onto the floor and rifled through everything. They didn't find the glock and safety catch because it was strapped to my thigh. I had a permit for it and they couldn't have done anything about it, anyway. Then they took the standard government-issued Google laptop on my desk. "Have fun, fuckers," I thought. The laptop was a decoy.

Finding nothing of interest in my bedroom, the police officers left. The instant the police officers left, my mother's right hand swung fast and hard onto my face. The blow knocked me over. I sat on the floor and wiped blood off my cheek. My head started to swirl and the room started to fade into blinding white light. Fortunately my father grabbed my mother and yanked her away, leading her out the door. When the light faded and I could see again, I saw that I had a blade in my right hand. You don't need a permit for a blade. The only thing related to me that the police officers had not searched was me.

End of Chapter 6

This story is based on the Twilight Zone episode "Number 12 Looks Just Like You!" Viacom holds the copyrights.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7: "A Birthday for Fenny"

Dad straggled back home at about three o'clock in the morning and informed me that my mother would not be returning to the apartment. He told me that he was going to take a personal day off from work and asked me not to wake him in the morning.

I got up at about nine o'clock and showered. I tossed an unopened box of condoms and an unopened tube of spermicide into a small clothes bag and set off for Fenny's apartment. My present for Fenny's eighteenth birthday was me.

I stepped off the bus and walked the short distance to the front door of Fenny's house. Fenny had the door open before I could knock. His parents were at work until five in the afternoon, so we had the house to ourselves for quite a few hours.

I took Fenny by the hand straight up the stairs for his bedroom. I tossed my dress onto his desk chair and the clothes bag on the floor. I sat on the side of his bed to let him get a look at me in just bra, bikini panties, and socks. For most guys, the sight of me sitting on the edge of the bed would have been a turnoff, but I knew that Fenny liked the little bit of extra flesh on my body. The roll below my waist was spilling out onto my thighs and I had small rolls of fat bulging out at my sides near my waist. Fenny did not care.

"You're beautiful. I always wanted to see what a normal-sized girl looked like naked."

"I'm normal-sized?" I asked. "I always thought I was chubby. I'm okay with being chubby because I like my curves, but I never thought that this was normal."

"I've seen yearbooks from high schools in the years before the one-world government. Some of the girls in the photos are smaller than you, some of the girls are bigger, but most are about the same size as you. You are absolutely normal, absolutely average, absolutely typical. You are also absolutely beautiful."

I blushed and removed my bra letting my breasts drop a bit. I had C-cup breasts which were just big enough to jiggle a little. They hung a little bit on my chest and the nipples turned up. I thought my breasts were just right for my body, but Fenny stared hard. Compared to all of the other girls in the school who had A or AA breasts, my breasts were huge.

"I am awestruck," said Fenny. "Your breasts are perfect. Your face and body should be a model for the other girls. Rolls and all!" Fenny stared at my face and pinched my cheeks with a grin on his face. When a guy stares at your face while you're sitting on the edge of his bed with your tits hanging out, you know he's a keeper.

I removed my bikini panties, and put my panties and bra into the clothes bag. I took out the condoms and spermicide and had Fenny undress so that I could put the condom on him. I wanted to put the condom on myself to make sure that it was put on correctly. I pinched the tip to make some room for what ends up in the end of every condom and unrolled the condom down Fenny's erection. I gave myself a massive squirt of spermicide and spread it around with my index finger. Fenny and I were both virgins, so what happened in bed was, of course, quite clumsy and awful. It was more an experience to forget rather than remember, but it was my gift given with the best of intentions, and I'm sure that Fenny appreciated it.

"Let's go to the Alderaan Cafe for lunch!" I said. Fenny had never been there, I was sure. The Alderaan Cafe was a coffee shop for teenagers who were "off their morning pill." It was like a step back in time. It also harbored a secret.

Fenny and I hopped a bus again. The Alderaan Cafe was in the poorer side of the city which was blighted with a large number of abandoned houses, businesses, and factories. Fenny stared wide-eyed at the destruction which had been wrought by capitalism before the one-world state had instituted a global partial socialism. Small businesses, the ones that could survive, were still privately owned.

I pulled the cord and grabbed Fenny's hand. The stop for Alderaan Cafe was easy to miss as the cafe itself was not lit up by any neon signs. It had a simple hand-painted sign outside marking it and an old Star Wars poster in the window. It was the poster that had Luke with a raised light-saber in his hands. It was emblematic of the attitudes you found toward the one-world state inside the cafe.

I led Fenny by the hand inside. The cafe looked like any independent college area coffee shop inside. A large, easily readable menu hung on the wall behind the cash registers. There was a long bar behind the cash registers where all the coffee-making equipment and a few panini presses sat. The walls were dark wood paneling with a few more Star Wars posters held up by yellowed, wide-strip cellophane tape. Old diner-style metal napkin dispensers were sitting on each table along with a container holding packets of sugar, artificial sweetner, and Coffee-Mate. Fenny held up a packet of Coffee-Mate.

"What is this stuff?" Fenny had never seen the once-common packets of "non-dairy creamer." Nowadays people always went up to the condiments bar to get cold milk, half-and-half, or cream from refrigerated dispensers. I took a seat at a table next to a Return of the Jedi poster, and Fenny went up to the counter to order two smoked turkey and white cheddar paninis for us. He also ordered two iced vanilla lattes for us. The small cafe was soon filled with the odor of our two heating paninis. There were only seven tables lined up against the wall, and there was only one other couple in view in the coffee shop. Fenny didn't know, however, that this area was only part of the coffee shop, and was mostly for show.

When Fenny and I had finished our paninis and iced lattes, I led him back into the corridor where the restrooms and employee entrance were located. I pulled Fenny inside the employee entrance and he immediately protested.

"We aren't supposed to be in this part!"

I pulled out my keychain and waved what looked like a shopper's card in front of a fake employee timeclock. A red light on the floor against the wall on the opposite side of the corridor began to blink.

"Step back, Fenny, that's a warning light."

I knelt down and waved my keychain in front of the blinking red light. In front of us, the floor parted revealing a narrow staircase lit by dim metal lamps in the shape of fireflies. As soon as we placed weight on the fifteenth step, we heard the staircase opening close behind us.

"This is like something from an old video game!" swooned Fenny. He was already impressed, and he hadn't seen the real coffee shop which was just ahead.

End of Chapter 7

This story is based on the Twilight Zone episode "Number 12 Looks Just Like You!" Viacom owns the copyrights.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8: "The Secret of the Alderaan Cafe"

Fenny and I continued down the stairway lit by metal firefly lamps and came to a door with a colorful image of a giant Ace of Hearts on top of a Jack of Spades. The door had a jagged line down the center. Fenny was perplexed at a way to open it. I waved my keychain in front of another fake employee timeclock, and, after a brief hesitation of a few seconds, the door split apart at the jagged line.

"There's a delay for all the music to be turned off before the door is opened," I told Fenny. "This room has soundproof walls." We stepped inside and I stopped to give Fenny time to gape at a virtual time capsule of the world of the 1970s. Just inside the door was a jukebox that played 45 rpm (rounds per minute) records. Without me touching a single button on the machine, a 45 dropped onto the platter and began to play.

One pill makes you larger

And one pill makes you small

And the ones that mother gives you

Don't do anything at all

Go ask Alice, when she's ten feet tall

And if you go chasing rabbits

And you know you're going to fall

Tell 'em a hookah smoking caterpillar

Has given you the call

Fenny didn't know, of course, that Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit" was programmed to start playing whenever the door was opened. To the immediate right of the door was a giant poster of a hookah-smoking caterpillar with a caption at the bottom.

The first sign of wisdom is hesitation.

Think before you agree to anything.

The dark wood panel walls were decorated with a wide variety of posters from "Star Wars," "The Empire Strikes Back," and "Return of the Jedi." About one third of the posters featured Yoda with a caption dispensing wisdom. A poster of Yoda holding a light saber and looking fierce was directly ahead of us.

The Empire never sleeps.

Neither can you.

There were twelve tables all told in this soundproof cellar: eight against the wall and four in the central area. All along the wall near the entrance was the coffee prep tables and panini presses. There was about three feet of space between the prep tables and the front counter for the employees. It looked a little cramped, but it was larger than what we had seen upstairs. The downstairs was the real coffeeshop. At the wall directly opposite the entrance was a narrow corridor with the restrooms. The lights were old-fashioned fluorescent bulbs above a plain white drop ceiling. "Welcome to 'The Cantina,' Fenny," I said.

There were only three tables occupied in the place: one by a couple that neither Fenny nor I recognized, a pair of chess players at a back table, and Lynette sitting at a table by herself fidgeting furiously and smoking an MJ. She had a suitcase sitting at her feet. Fenny and I walked up to Lynette's table and noticed instantly that she looked different. It only took me a few moments to realize what had happened to her.

"So when did you quit taking your morning pills, Lynette?" I asked. Her left foot continued to fidget and she did not even look at me.

"About a month ago? Obvious, isn't it?" Lynette took another drag on her MJ and took another sip of her cola drink.

Fenny looked at Lynette with increasing curiosity. I was sure he had already noticed that her breasts were bigger. B-cups, in fact.

"You do know what happens to girls who quit their morning pills cold turkey, don't you?" I asked Lynette.

"Of course, I know. I had run out of time. Now or never. Quit or don't quit."

"What do you mean you had run out of time?"

Lynette looked toward her suitcase. "Isn't it obvious that I'm going to run? My third consultation is tomorrow. I'm not going. I won't submit. I'm running away."

I stared at Lynette. I thought that I was the only one who had ever said "no."

"You're not the only one, Alice, who has refused to be mutilated by 'The Change.' You're just the only one who has refused publicly. Ever since there was 'The Change,' there were runners. I quit my morning pills because I needed muscles and physical strength. I know very well that I'll probably get as big as you. That's okay. I want your muscles. I want your physical strength. Out in the abandoned zone, I'll need it to survive."

"I just thought you wanted her boobs," quipped Fenny, trying to make Lynette laugh.

Lynette nearly spewed her cola. "Lucky side effect," she said grinning at Fenny. Lynette pulled her blouse down tight over her chest. "Ya like 'em? They're B-cups!"

Lynette poked me. "Did you ever figure out that your boyfriend is what used to be called a 'chubby chaser'? He just loves to see girls jiggle."

Fenny looked a wee bit offended and whispered to me, "She's lit like a Christmas tree."

It is true that Lynette had never acted this forward before. The combination of being off her morning pills and smoking an MJ had definitely loosened her tongue.

Lynette waved the MJ at me. "You want one? They grow their own and hand roll them. They're not expensive. You can get one right at the counter." I already knew this, but had never had the desire to smoke one. MJs had been cheap ever since the one-world state had ended the drug war and emptied the prisons of drug offenders. It was one of the first things they did.

"I won't be alone out there in the abandoned zone. I have a contact who is expecting me. The Alderaan Cafe is a meeting place for those intent on subverting 'The Change.' When you leave, for example, pick up some sugar pills. They look just like morning pills and can replace them. If you have no use for them, give them to someone who wants to quit their morning pills. It's better to taper off than go cold-turkey. There are about twenty-five runners out there in the abandoned zone. My contact tells me that there are at least 10,000 runners in the world. Maybe as many as 100,000. He says that your public refusal has spiked the number of runners this summer. Now that refusal has a public face, you may end up setting off a worldwide revolt."

"Doesn't the government pursue runners?" I asked.

"They don't have the resources. There have been almost no technological advances since 'The Change' was instituted. The system is starting to crack. The world has been in a state of stagnation for twenty-five years." Lynette took another drag.

I looked around me at all the Star Wars posters and all the posters of Yoda with captions. One stood out in particular:

"Every revolution begins with a single act of defiance."

End of Chapter 8

This story is based on the Twilight Zone episode "Number 12 Looks Just Like You!" Viacom holds the copyrights. Partial lyrics to Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit" copied under fair use doctrine.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9: "A Little Bit of Chess"

Lynette picked up her bag and walked up to the door. She waved her keychain at a fake timeclock, and, after a few seconds delay for all music to turn off, disappeared up the stairway. I wondered if I would ever see her again.

The pair playing chess abandoned their session and also disappeared up the stairway, leaving Fenny and me alone with the two employees behind the counter. I walked over to the table where the two chess players had been sitting and picked up the set, pieces, and chess clock. I carried them over to the table where Fenny was sitting and, without a word, he set up the pieces, wound the old-fashioned analog chess clock, and set the time for ten minutes for all moves.

"Ready for a little blitz?" asked Fenny. I went up to the counter for an iced latte and was back a moment later.

"Now I'm ready," I said, sipping on a straw.

Fenny gave me white, and I opened with a standard King's Pawn opening. Fenny played his usual Sicilian, and I pulled a surprise on him. Instead of opening the position which is usual in the Sicilian, I played a forgotten closed line once known as the Grand Prix Attack. Fenny castled and walked right into my attack. It was all over in less than 30 moves. Fenny couldn't believe it.

"I do win an occasional game against you, Fenny. You're not that much stronger than me."

Of course Fenny won two games against me, but the majority, as usual, were drawn. Fenny and I were about equal in ability to calculate ahead, but Fenny had a slight edge in planning ahead. Fenny used to say that he could develop a plan just by looking at the position of the pawns on the chessboard. Fenny's subtle planning ability was what made it possible for him to often beat computer chess programs on the internet that were much higher-rated than he was. One thing was certain: no one would ever be able to mistake Fenny's play for that of a computer chess program.

When we were finished, we took the chess equipment back to the counter for an employee to put away. I walked up to the exit, waved my keychain at a fake timeclock, waited for the music to turn off, and watched the door split open. Just before entering the stairway, I picked up two boxes of sugar pills. When I watched Fenny step off the bus for his house, it dawned on me that this was almost surely the last time I would ever see Fenny as himself.

End of Chapter 9

This story is based on the Twilight Zone episode "Number 12 Looks Just Like You!" Viacom holds the copyrights.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10: "Alice-13"

The day after Fenny's birthday, I received a certified letter instructing me to show up at the Change Medical Center the next day to be scanned for the creation of female model number 13. "Lucky number!" I thought. I had a plan to protect myself.

The next day, I took a bag for my clothes, and strapped my glock with the add-on safety attachment to my thigh. I also had a knife blade strapped to my upper left arm under my dress sleeve and another knife blade strapped to my upper right arm. I was not a trusting soul. If anyone attempted to physically herd me into a procedure room, I had already decided that there would be blood.

I rode the bus and got off at a pet shop half-way to the Change Medical Center. I bought a canary in a small wire cage. I kind of felt sorry for the little guy, considering what I had in mind for him. I rode the bus to the Change Medical Center the rest of the way, and walked in to the front counter. The same doctor whom I had encountered before was waiting for me.

"You will not need the gun you have strapped to your thigh," the doctor stated. "No one will attempt to physically force you to do anything you do not wish to do. You have an incorrect conception of how we operate."

He didn't mention the two knives that I had strapped to my upper arms. So the Planners did not know absolutely everything after all. I was grateful that there were no metal detectors installed in the Change Medical Center.

The doctor led me down the long hallway to the scan room at the far end. This time the room was well-cleaned. The only piece of equipment that was turned on was the scanner at the center of the back wall. I felt an icy chill roll up my back. A quote from a Yoda poster popped into my head:

"Fear is the white noise of the mind. Ignore it."

I breathed in and then breathed out. I blotted out all the images of my imagination. I focused only on the situation at hand, and blocked everything else out.

"The scanner is a relatively simple machine to operate. The complicated part is creating a model out of the scan. That's what all these other machines are for. After we have a successful scan, three specialists will be flying in from New York City to turn your scan into the female model number 13."

I put the canary cage on the scanning platform and closed the glass doors of the tube-like chamber. "You will be scanning the canary first. There will be no discussion about this. I will be watching from a safe distance."

The doctor started to open his mouth, but I interrupted him.

"There will be no discussion. Start the scanner." I lifted my dress up my right thigh to expose the glock to make certain that the doctor got the point.

The doctor started the scanner and a yellowish light began at the top of the chamber and slowly worked its way down the chamber. The canary seemed agitated and hopped around quite a bit. The scan worked its way down to the canary cage. The canary continued to hop around frantically inside the cage. When the scan ceased, the canary returned to his perch and chirped, but he did not sing. The canary appeared totally unchanged. I wondered if the radiation dose he just got would be enough to kill him or make his feathers fall out.

"Show me the output of the scan," I said to the doctor gesturing toward the other machines. The output looked like a 3D CAT scan image. A hexadecimal password attached to the 3D CAT scan was also visible. I wondered what that was for. I asked the doctor and he gave a curious response.

"The body can be used as a password for entering restricted, high-security areas." He did not elaborate. The idea of the body itself as a password for unlocking doors fascinated me.

The doctor informed me that the entire interior of the scanning booth and the platform itself had been disinfected with both rubbing alcohol and industrial disinfectant. The doctor told me to strip before stepping onto the scanning platform. I stripped down to lingerie, placing my wadded-up dress into my clothes bag, and stepped onto the platform – my glock and two blades in full view. The doctor informed me that I had to strip completely for the scan, including my socks.

"Put a long table directly in front of the scanning booth," I told him. "I need a place to put my weapons."

He agreed.

"Now put another long table in front of the first table. That is to keep my weapons out of reach of anyone near the table."

"You're paranoid, but I agree." He moved a second table in front of the first.

"You must stay at the controls the entire time the scan is taking place. If you don't, I will move disrupting the scan and grab for my weapons. No one is permitted to enter the room while the scan is taking place. You must lock the door from the inside with a deadbolt. No electronic stuff. If anyone enters, I will move disrupting the scan and grab for my weapons. Are we clear?"

"You're a nutcase, but I agree." The doctor walked over to the entrance and turned his key in the lock for the deadbolt.

I placed my weapons on the table and removed my lingerie and socks. I stood straight up with my hands down at my side. I was intensely aware of the squishy and jiggly spots on my body. I felt a bit self-conscious, but the doctor seemed oblivious.

"You act as if you've seen girls with the exact same body type as me a thousand times," I said. The doctor's response surprised me.

"You're forgetting my age. I was a doctor in the bad old days when hospitals let people die if they didn't have insurance or money to pay for the services in advance. I've seen thousands of girls with bodies similar to yours. In fact, your body type was the most common. A girl your age should be a little wobbly in a few places. A girl who doesn't jiggle anywhere is underweight. Of course now, all school girls who take their morning pills are underweight."

"Would you be able to tell me what's in those morning pills?"

"The morning pills for girls contain appetite suppressants, hormone supressants, tranquilizers, vitamins, minerals, and a few other things. It's a wonder the morning pills for girls aren't as big as computer mice. The boys' pills contain steroids, tranquilizers, vitamins, minerals, and a few other things. I'm surprised that they aren't huge as well."

The doctor seemed in a trance for a moment, and then he was all business. "You must remain perfectly still while the scan is in progress. I'm actually not sure how long it takes to scan a human. You're a lot bigger than that canary. You will be exposed to a tiny amount of radiation, about equal to a dental x-ray. Your skin will probably tingle a bit as if you were in a tanning booth. The scanner does not generate any heat."

The doctor kept his word and stayed at the control panel. The scan took somewhere around seven minutes and felt exactly as the doctor described.

"What name are you going to give my model?"

"Female Model Number 13 – Alice."

"I'm just grateful that you won't be calling it the 'Bertha' model."

"We are finished. You may put your lingerie, weapons, and clothes back on."

The doctor stayed put behind the control panel while I dressed myself. When I had finished, he led me to the entrance door and turned the key in the deadbolt lock. He led me down the hallway to the front lobby. There were no tricks.

"You see," said the doctor. "You did not need your weapons. Physical force is not the way we operate. We are civilized – much more civilized that the old societies that we replaced. Thank you for the great service that you have rendered. It has been a long time since we had a new model for either sex."

"I don't think I have to worry about seeing any copies of myself anytime soon. Nobody will voluntarily choose to look like what is currently perceived to be a fat girl."

"You underestimate yourself," said the doctor.

End of Chapter 10

This story is based on the Twilight Zone episode "Number 12 Looks Just Like You!" Viacom owns the copyrights.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11: "Fenny"

On the first Monday after being scanned at the Change Medical Center, I decided to go visit Fenny at his home in the morning while his parents would be gone. Needless to say, by this time, Fenny had undergone "The Change," and I thought it was time that I gathered my courage and went to see how much of my Fenny was left. Remembering what had happened to Michelle, I wasn't really that hopeful. My agenda was sex, lunch, and chess, in that order. I took my clothes bag and tossed in a box of condoms and a tube of spermicide.

I hopped a bus riding as far as I could, and walked the rest of the way to Fenny's house. I walked up to the front door and hesitated a moment. I wondered if Fenny would answer the door before I could knock. Not this time. I knocked. I had no idea which model Fenny had chosen.

Fenny answered. I knew that it was Fenny as there was no one else home. Another Rex. Oh fucking barf. Well, I suppose I would have reacted that way to any of the model choices. It suddenly popped into my head to wonder if any men had ever chosen a female model or vice-versa. Was such a thing even possible? I pushed the thought out of my mind and entered the door as a noticeably disinterested Fenny invited me in with a mechanical politeness that reminded me of a tired waiter in a restaurant. He had always been nearly ecstatic to see me before.

Wanting to find out quickly just how much "The Change" had altered Fenny, I took him by the hand up the stairs to his bedroom. This time Fenny didn't seem to know why I was leading him up the stairs. I was baffled as I led him to his bed. Without a word I stripped off my dress and tossed it over the back of his desk chair with the flair of a stripper. Without waiting for any signal from Fenny, I also stripped off my bra and panties. I sat completely naked except for my socks on Fenny's bed. I patted the bed as a signal to Fenny to come join me. I deliberately leaned over to the side and a bit forward to let my breasts hang a bit. I felt as sexy as a movie star while my brain screamed that I was in the room with a total stranger. Fenny looked at my midsection.

Self-conscious for the first time ever with Fenny, I looked down at my midsection to see the roll below my waist squished on top of my left thigh and draping over it. The two little love handles at the side of my waist were hanging out, too. Fenny used to love the little bit of extra flesh on my body and often gave me the impression that he wished that I had more of it. Now, the soft, rounded curves of my body had Fenny wrinkling his nose in distaste.

"You really need to go on a diet."

I looked at Fenny. "On your birthday you drooled at the sight of me and loved every single pound of flesh I had on me. Every jiggle excited you and turned you on even more. Where's my chubby-chasing little pervert?"

Fenny looked me up and down slowly. "You're very pretty, but you would need to become fit to appeal to me." Fenny addressed me as if I were a blind date.

"What is your idea of a fit body?" I asked. I was afraid to know.

"A firm, toned body with a slim waist, narrow hips, and a small, firm backside."

I'm sure that my mouth was hanging open by this point. "I'd have to drop at least forty pounds to fit that description."

"You definitely have a lot of work to do to become fit. It will sure take awhile. At least a year, I think. Maybe two."

I was five feet four and 140 pounds. "Fenny, if I dropped forty pounds, my breasts, hips, and butt would all deflate. This roll below my waist would probably be the last thing to disappear." I pinched my tummy roll between two fingers and lifted it up off my thigh. "Fenny, breasts, hips, and butt are all temporary, but the female tummy bulge is forever. Even skinny girls have it. There's no getting rid of it once you have it. Ever."

Fenny gave me a wry smile. "Excuses, excuses…," he said.

"What do you think of my breasts, Fenny?" I leaned forward letting them dangle.

"Your breasts are perfect just as they are."

"Fenny, your feminine ideal is tits on a broomstick. Nature does not put C-cups on broomsticks. You want me to drop forty pounds, but not lose my C-cup breasts. Not happening. Nature doesn't work that way. A rack and a pooch are a package deal."

I suddenly remembered that the original twelve female models all had the tits on a broomstick with a wig look. Glued-on tits that didn't jiggle. Wasp waist. No hips or ass. Ugh! I put my clothes back on. It was obvious that I wasn't going to get laid. I headed for the stairway. I was going to leave.

Fenny called down the stairway to me. "We can go out for lunch, if you'd like."

I looked at Fenny surprised that he had made the offer. "You're actually willing to be seen in public with me?"

"Of course," said Fenny. "You're a very pretty girl. You're just big."

An old movie titled "Shallow Hall" just popped into my head. I wasn't feeling charitable at all at this point. "I'll go out to lunch with you if you'll bring a chess set and chess clock with you."

"Deal," said Fenny. He went back up the stairs and brought down his magnetic travel chess set and a small, analog clock. Fenny preferred an analog clock for blitz chess.

"Where do you want to go?" asked Fenny. Fenny had never asked me before. We had always just gone to the pizza parlour where he always ordered a 16-inch plain cheese pizza, ate three of the twelve pieces, and left the other nine for me. Fenny loved to watch me stuff my face. The little pervert. I didn't get many restaurant meals, and I figured stuffing my face with pizza twice a month wouldn't do any harm. He offered to take me out for pizza more often than twice a month numerous times, but I always refused.

"Pizza parlour," I said. "The usual place." I wondered if he would order a sixteen-inch plain cheese pizza as usual.

When the waitress came to take the order, Fenny ordered a twelve-inch plain cheese pizza for us both. He ate three pieces as usual, and scolded me for overeating when I scarfed down the fifth piece.

"Fenny," I told him, "I'm used to eating nine pieces when we go out for pizza. You always ordered a sixteen-inch before."

Fenny looked baffled. "I did? That's way too much for two people."

There was no question about it. Fenny's memory had been affected by "The Change" the same as Michelle's memory had been affected. Some things he remembered, other things he did not. I was sure that with some investigation I would discover a pattern in what memories seemed erased.

The waitress came with the dessert menu. I knew that we had never ordered anything from it before. I wondered how Fenny would react if I ordered some fattening dessert. I ordered one-fourth of a chocolate cake which was supposed to be for two or three people. The waitress brought the cake on a platter with a knife beside it and placed a plate in front of both Fenny and me. I knew Fenny wouldn't eat any of the cake, so I dragged the platter in front of me and ate the entire one-fourth of the cake myself. Fenny couldn't help himself.

"No wonder you're fat."

I leaned forward, threw my shoulders back, and pulled my dress down tight over my chest. "I didn't get these by starving myself." Fenny looked more than a little disturbed at my brashness. Before "The Change," he would have gotten a kick from me throwing my chest in his face. Fenny pulled out his chess set, and we proceeded to play game after game of blitz chess with the clock while partaking of free refills of unsweetened ice tea. Fenny won the first four games straight.

It dawned on me that Fenny's ability to calculate had improved. If I made the slightest tactical error, he spotted it immediately and trounced me. I decided to change tactics and play only closed openings. Fenny had Black in the fifth game and I opened with pawn to queen bishop's fourth. The English Opening. I had never played it against Fenny before. Fenny hesitated and timidly moved his king pawn forward one square. We quickly transposed to a Queen's Gambit Exchange Variation with me employing a minority attack on the queenside. Fenny's calculating abilities were useless in such a position and he ended up shifting a rook back and forth as I made steady progress. Fenny let his clock run out in a hopeless position. In the next game, with Fenny as White, I played a French Defense against his King's Pawn Opening. Another closed position. Fenny aimlessly shifted pieces while I advanced a wall of pawns down on top of his King. Another rout. I won six games in a row like this. Fenny had had enough. Of Fenny's old strength in planning, I saw none. His tactical ability was greater, but he could not plan. Fenny played chess like a computer program. I felt a chill as cold as the vacuum of space go down my spine. "Could Fenny now be a robot?" I wondered.

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End of Chapter 11

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This story is based on the Twilight Zone episode "Number 12 Looks Just Like You!" Viacom holds the copyrights.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12: "Amy"

The day after Amy's third consultation, when "The Change" is effected, I made a landline telephone call to her apartment to arrange to meet her at a bench on a little-used trail in a public park. Yes, I used the landline. I don't own a cell phone or a smart phone because the government copies and stores every message sent on those things. I'm sure the landlines are bad for privacy issues as well, but you have to use something, you know?

As I walked down the trail fashionably late, I knew that Amy would be waiting for me on the bench. As with Fenny, I didn't know which model she had chosen, or, possibly, if she had refused "The Change" at the last minute. Now that it was publicly known that someone had openly refused "The Change," it was possible that others might find the nerve to do what I had done.

As I walked up to the bench where Amy was sitting, I stopped frozen in my tracks. Amy smiled at me.

"Number 13 looks just like you!" Amy had chosen me, Alice-13, as her model. I was looking at a perfect copy of myself. Burnished copper red hair down to the shoulders, freckles across the nose and full, rounded cheeks, muscular arms, prominent, medium-sized breasts that pressed outward against the dress fabric, fleshy hips and behind that spread outward a bit on the bench, and a squishy roll below the waist that was impossible to hide. I recognized Amy's voice as my own. Even the voice was a perfect copy. I thought no one would choose my model. In a world of barbie dolls with pinched faces and cinched-in waists, who would voluntarily choose to be a chubby-looking average-sized woman?

Amy did. She had that blissed-out happy look that everyone who had just undergone "The Change" had. Maybe the transformation process pumped them full of THC to prevent them from waking up with panic attacks. She was wearing a brand new dress. Of course, nothing she had from before "The Change" would fit her. Amy leaned toward me as I sat down.

"I just wanted to be pretty. All my life I just wanted to be pretty. When my Change Guide showed me all the original models up close under bright light, I noticed that they all looked like plastic dolls. Or mannequins in a department store. They weren't pretty at all. I just wanted to be pretty. I left my second consultation without choosing. I said I would choose at my third consultation. When I arrived for my third consultation, my Change Guide told me that there was one new additional model available. He showed me Alice-13 that had just been added to the repertoire in a room for twelve additional models. Your model was the only model in the room. The other eleven spaces were empty. I recognized the model as you immediately. For a moment, I thought of becoming a model myself, but I knew that I wasn't pretty enough to be a model. So I chose your model. I was envious of how pretty you were, and how many of the high school boys noticed you as you walked by. Even the boys who called you fat often stared. I just wanted to be noticed. I wanted the men to notice me."

I felt overwhelming sorrow as I listened to Amy's rambling. Not all of her seemed to be there. In the coming days, I soon discovered that some of her memories were missing just as with Michelle and Fenny. Amy only wanted to be pretty. Amy only wanted to be noticed. I had a question for Amy.

"So you just wanted to be noticed? In a world where all the adult men look just like our parents and teachers, will you notice them?"

End of Chapter 12

This story is based on the Twilight Zone episode "Number 12 Looks Just Like You!" Viacom holds the copyrights.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13: "Queen of the Damned"

I went into the Alderaan Cafe intending to use the old Thinkpad laptop running Freax that I kept in a locker in the downstairs area, but there were a barbie doll and ken doll in their identical uniforms with nameplates in the upstairs area which made that impossible. No one was allowed to open the downstairs passage when there were people around who had undergone "The Change." I stayed upstairs and ordered a smoked turkey panini and iced latte. The jukebox was blaring an old tune which seemed disturbingly appropriate for the current time.

Oh, superman, where are you now?

When everything's gone wrong somehow?

The men of steel, these men of power

Are losing control by the hour

This is the time, this is the place

So we look for the future

But there's not much love to go around

Tell me why this is a land of confusion

The barbie doll and ken doll in a booth along the wall were oblivious to the music and didn't seem really much interested in each other, either.

I won't be coming home tonight

My generation will put it right

We're not just making promises

That we know we'll never keep

There's too many men, too many people

Making too many problems

And there's not much love to go round

Can't you see this is a land of confusion?

When I picked up my order, the clerk left a note for me underneath the receipt. A note from Lynette.

"I will be coming in every evening around seven o'clock for the first week in the month. Meet me downstairs if there are no zombies around. Bring chocolate. -Lynette"

The first day of the new month was tomorrow, so I went out in search of chocolate and made up a "care package" for Lynette. I was looking forward to seeing her, especially considering that I had expected never to see her again. I wondered what three weeks of living in the abandoned zone had done to her.

It was still summer and still vacation from school for people my age, so I had plenty of time to put together my "care package" for Lynette. When seven o'clock in the evening came, I headed for the Alderaan Cafe. Thankfully there were no ken or barbie dolls upstairs.

I headed down the stairway to the cellar part of the coffee shop full of anticipation. The door closed behind me and "White Rabbit" started to play as was customary. Lynette turned her face toward me and I nearly stumbled and fell flat on my face. The girl who once looked like Vivien Leigh now looked like a Biblical prophet from the old testament. Long matted hair now flowed past her shoulders halfway to her waist. Her face was clean, but completely unadorned by any type of makeup. The body which I had expected to be growing rather voluptuous after nearly two months off the morning pills was instead solid, muscular, almost masculine. Images of John the Baptist and even Moses popped into my head. Most people would have never known that she was an eighteen-year-old girl. A two-inch-wide shock of solid white splashed her hair. I sat down at her table.

"Amazing what three weeks in the abandoned zone can do to a girl. Aren't I a mess?"

I quickly opened a shoulder bag full of goods for Lynette and told her that she could keep the bag, too. There were ten large bars of chocolate in the bag. Lynette immediately grabbed one and wolfed it down.

"The girls in the abandoned zone took all of my chocolate from me the first night. They pretty much took everything I had except for my clothes. They even took my brushes. Hair brushes are considered communal property. I get to use my brushes maybe twice a week. Getting mad and walking away from them was not an option. We girls all slept together in a different place each night. It still didn't help in hiding from the men."

I felt ice cold as Lynette mentioned hiding from the men. I kind of knew what she was about to tell me next.

"I made a list of all the people in the abandoned zone just outside this city. There were 51 people in total. There were 33 women and 18 men. Every night, the men went out searching for us to try to rape us. I fought off a rape attempt my first night, and killed a man with the hunting knife that I had brought with me strapped to my thigh. I killed him while he was on top of me tearing my panties off. I dragged his body to a garbage pit and threw it in for the rats. After that first night, there were only 50 people. I was the first woman in the abandoned zone who ever killed a man. No wonder that the men were so aggressive. The next day we went scavenging for knives and found a nice collection of nasty Bowie knives with brass knuckles in an old abandoned sporting goods store. There were just sitting on the shelves in the storage area. The front retail section had been stripped. Apparently previous scavengers were too stupid to walk back in the employee areas. We scrounged everywhere looking for guns, but didn't find any. I spent all the money I had at an antique shop for an ancient Colt Walker revolver. The owner of the antique shop had to teach me how to load and use the gun. He even taught me how to use lard to prevent a spark from igniting all six chambers at once. He had a mold to make bullets and offered to supply me with bullets and powder in exchange for scrap metal."

I kind of knew what was coming.

"On my third night, the men found us sleeping in an old, abandoned auto factory. The men all had knives and a few had guns. I was one of the two sentries keeping watch, and I killed two of them right at the entrance door. The rest of them ran when they realized that at least one of us women had a gun. They made a big mistake. They didn't grab for the pistols that the two I killed had. Then we had three guns. That night I did a poll of the women and we made a tally of which men had made rape attempts. Turned out that all of them had made rape attempts at one time or another. On my fourth night, we didn't hide to go to sleep. Instead, we went out looking for the men. I led the entire group. Three of us had guns: one colt walker and two more modern pistols. All of us had knives."

"All of them?" I asked.

"We killed all of the men that night. They were sleeping in groups of two or three. Nobody keeping watch. No fear at all. With most of them, we slit their throats while they slept. We only had to use the guns once. It was easy. When we had killed them all, we hacked off their heads with an axe and put them up on fence posts all around the abandoned zone with a warning that any male entering the abandoned zone would be killed on sight."

"No qualms about what you did?"

Lynette stared me in the face cold as ice from a glacier. "It was self-defense. We have a right to sleep in peace. And now we do."

Lynette led me into the abandoned zone after we finished eating. I shuddered when I saw one of the severed heads on a fencepost above a warning as I walked past. Lynette was greeted by the other women as if she were Moses leading the damned out of Egypt. I was awestruck at what she had done, and a little bit of afraid of her.

End of Chapter 13

This story is based on the Twilight Zone episode "Number 12 Looks Just Like You!" Viacom owns the copyrights. Partial lyrics to the song "Land of Confusion" by Genesis copied under the fair use principle.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14: "Freax and Geeks"

I returned to the Alderaan Cafe the next day to use my laptop stored in a downstairs locker to record some diary entries. I had originally purchased the old Thinkpad at an antique technologies store for the sole purpose of having a laptop that had an operating system that was free of government backdoors and resistant to being hacked over the internet. It was a Freax laptop. All I wanted was to write my diary and not have some pervert bureaucrat reading it every time I connected to the internet. I had no idea how much you could do with a computer running Freax.

There were no mannequins upstairs, so I headed to the corridor with the restrooms and stepped just inside the employee entrance. I waved my keychain in front of a fake timeclock, and then stepped back. The floor parted opening the way to the dimly-lit narrow staircase leading to the real coffeeshop. "Down the rabbit hole," I thought.

When the door opened to the real coffeeshop, there was no "White Rabbit" from Jefferson Airplane to greet me this time. Something new was playing.

Another world, another time

In the age of wonder

Another world, another time

This land was green and good

Until the crystal cracked

A fast techno beat boomed out of the bookend speakers behind the counter, and the male employee abandoned his female coworker to pounce on me. Well, I suppose I did ask for it by entering alone.

Once more

They will replenish themselves

Cheat death again

The power of their source

The crystal

"Dance with me?" the male employee asked. His employee nametag said "Darrin." I thought of the hapless husband of the witch on the old TV series "Bewitched."

The crystal

The crystal

The power of their source

The crystal

One other couple in the room had gotten up to dance. The boy looked like a typical high school senior, but the girl, quite short, was definitely off her morning pills. She had what looked like an MJ dangling from her fingertips as she danced. I slid out into the empty space between the employee counter and the tables along the wall to slow-dance.

Oh my God this is the best

Oh my God this is the best

Oh my God this is the best

Oh my God this is the best

Oh my God this is the best

Uh, I want you to trip like me, I want you to have fun

Me and you

Oh my God this is the best

Uh, I want you to trip like I do

Suddenly the tempo sped way up and the drums began pounding with sexual intensity. The girl across the room from was flinging her body around in what seemed a drug-induced ecstasy. The boy stepped back to watch. I had never imagined that B-cup breasts and a size 8 backside could jiggle and wobble like that. I thought in horror of what my own body would look like if I danced with equal abandon.

Oh my God

I released my grasp and shouted into his ear over the din, "Get a thinner girl if you want to dance like that!" Darrin took three steps back and looked me up and down grinning like a Cheshire cat. Like Fenny used to do – before The Change. The girl across the room had dropped her MJ on the floor. I slumped to a table.

Oh my God this is the best

Oh my God this is the best

I want you to trip like I do

Oh my God

"I like my women unchanged and off their morning pills!" Darrin shouted in my ear. He sat down at the table across from me and bobbed his head as the floor vibrated to the booming beat. Sound distortion made me wonder if there was something wrong with speakers.

I want you to trip like I do

I want you to trip like I do

I want you to trip like I do

I started to laugh. The song switch, I suddenly realized, had been a setup. Darrin had been wanting to dance with me for a long time. And then the music ended. Silence. My ears were ringing. Darrin led me over to the jukebox. This song was unavailable on a 45 rpm. It was a digital selection. "Trip Like I Do" by "The Crystal Method."

"Weren't you here yesterday?" asked Darrin.

"Yes, I was. I was going to use my laptop in the storage lockers, but I got distracted when an old friend from high school showed up."

"You were in here with that runner. We don't care about such things here. I didn't see nothing."

"That's why I come here." I walked up to my locker, turned a key, and took out my laptop. I closed the locker door and relocked it even though there was absolutely nothing else in my locker. Darrin stared at my laptop with intense curiosity.

I slid the lever in front and lifted the lid. Darrin stared in awe at the old Thinkpad keyboard. You could actually type on it. No shrunken keys. Good feel when you pressed a key. Not like the keyboards on the government-issued free Google laptops. I pressed the power button and Darrin watched the "Loading Freax Kernel" progress bar slowly extend across the black screen. Then the scrolling wall of white text came next as the Freax Operating System loaded. Unlike the Android system in the government-issued laptops, Freax was free of any government backdoors and had a famous stealth firewall that made internet-based probing of the hard drive extremely difficult.

"I always wanted one of these!" exclaimed Darrin. "What do you use it for?"

"I use it to keep my diary and surf the internet without getting my hard drive probed," I answered.

Darrin looked at me with an expression of surprise. "You've never used it to access underground news sources?" I suddenly realized that my comment about getting my hard drive probed sounded vaguely sexual.

"What underground news sources?" I asked. Darrin looked like he was going to faint.

"Have you ever heard of the TOR Network?"

"Nope." Darrin's eyes rolled back in his head. Yup. Darrin was a geek. Pure. Innocent. Brilliant. Socially inept. He reminded me of Fenny in our high school days. I wondered if he played chess.

"You have no idea what you have here, do you?" Darrin picked up my laptop and carried it to a table with an ethernet cord rolled up in a clip on the wall just below an ethernet jack. He took the ethernet cord and plugged it in to my laptop just as I had done here numerous times before. We waited a moment for the wired network active notification. Darrin's index finger darted to the touchpad and maneuvered to my applications menu in the upper-left corner of the screen. There underneath the "Internet" menu was something called "TorBrowser." Darrin left-clicked on the touchpad. A window opened on my screen titled "Tor Status." A message at the top stated "Connecting to the Tor Network" while a map of the world sprawled out below. A green line snaked from one location on the world map to another as a message at the bottom stated "Creating 27-node daisy chain." After the green line stopped snaking from one location to another, the message at the bottom stated "You are connected to the TOR Network. You have approximately 30 minutes before the government can trace this connection." The world map disappeared and a regular web page opening to torproject dot org opened. A countdown clock showing 29 minutes and some seconds appeared in the upper-right corner of the web page. Darrin opened up a page titled "BBC Underground."

"These underground news sites can only be accessed while using the TorBrowser," said Darrin. "There used to be proxies into the TOR Network, but those have all shut down. They weren't anonymous, and people were afraid to use them."

I stared in amazement at the news stories I was seeing. Everything that the government refused to report was here. I was one of the top news articles: "High School Graduate Publicly Refuses Change." It was all there except for my name and my address which were withheld for my safety. The article stated that I was the first to publicly refuse, and then gave background on other people who had refused before me, but not publicly. The article estimated the number of "runners" to be far higher than what Lynette had told me. A map below the article showed the largest "abandoned zones" of the world and the number of "runners" estimated to be living in them. Ironically, it was the free basic necessity goods provided by the state that made it possible for "runners" to survive in the abandoned zones. They picked up the free, basic goods in small, privately-owned groceries and general goods stores that were located in the slum areas that always abutted the "abandoned zones."

Another top news story was about Lynette and her fellow women just outside our our city who had banded together and slaughtered a rape gang. The news article mentioned that rape gangs were a problem in many of the abandoned zones, and that Lynette's group was the first ever to execute an entire rape gang. The news reporter stated that she thought it unwise to post a photograph of Lynette, but she gave a description of her that was positively terrifying.

The seventh top ten news article was about the uptick in "noshows" who were high school graduates who ignored their summons to their first consultations and moved away instead without leaving any forwarding addresses. These people were not "runners" and still lived in government-controlled areas. Darrin quietly whispered to me while we were looking at this article that he was a "noshow" himself. Darrin was nineteen and a son of the owner of the Alderaan Cafe. That explained a lot about his behaviour. The last of the top-ten news articles was about protest groups who had publicly labeled me a traitor for refusing the change and were demanding that I be marched at gunpoint to the nearest Change Medical Center and changed whether I liked it or not. I wondered if those idiots even knew about the Alice-13 model. The protest groups claimed that I was a threat to social stability. Fortunately for me, the protests all took place in front of government offices in the world's biggest cities. I wondered how long it would be before a protester showed up in front of my parents' apartment building. I was suddenly very glad that I had stayed paranoid and always carried my gun and two knives.

We surfed a few other underground news sites, and then a ding warned us that we only had five minutes left before our Tor connection could be traced. Darrin closed the TorBrowser and I decided to turn off my laptop. I noticed that all the underground news websites we had visited had a dot onion suffix. I unplugged the adapter from the wall. I had a full charge which was enough for two hours untethered. Not bad for an antique lithium-ion battery. Darrin and I danced to Carole King's "It's Too Late" before I decided to leave. Maybe someday, I thought, I would get around to trying an MJ with my panini and unsweetened iced tea. Maybe some day in the future.

End of Chapter 14

This story is based on the Twilight Zone episode "Number 12 Looks Just Like You!" Viacom owns the copyrights. Full lyrics to "Trip Like I Do" by The Crystal Method copied under the fair use principle.


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15: "Dust in Sunlight"

The fourth consultation for me seemed rather pointless, but I was eager to go as I had a mystery to solve. I was convinced that I had figured out what "The Change" was, and I wanted to verify my hypotheses with the Doctor. Still not a trusting soul, I took my weapons with me. In fact, I went nowhere without them.

The Doctor was waiting for me behind the counter, and immediately motioned me to follow him back to the scanning room. After we entered, he told me why he wanted to conduct my fourth consultation in the scanning room.

"No cameras or microphones back here," said the Doctor. "Only place in the entire facility where one can speak without being recorded or monitored." I suspected that the Doctor had something important to tell me.

"After all this time," I said, " I think I have solved the mystery of just what 'The Change' is."

"I had anticipated that you would have a few questions about the process," said the Doctor. "Go ahead, I'm listening."

"The physical alterations of 'The Change' are the lure for the process, but are not the real purpose of the process. The real purpose is the memory wipe and the blunting of strong emotions. 'The Change' wipes the memory clean of any events containing strong emotions. I've seen this in my friends from high school repeatedly. After 'The Change,' all the memories that I cherish most have disappeared from their minds. Fenny seems to have forgotten how he used to lust after me. There was a time when the height of female beauty for Fenny was a girl who was filled out enough to jiggle a bit when she walks. Someone like me. Not any more. Now Fenny's feminine ideal is a Barbie Doll like any of the twelve original models. Michelle once had all sorts of ideas for the teaching of foreign languages. Now she thinks that those ideas aren't even important enough to write down. Amy was my best friend. Now she seems perpetually stoned out of her head. No, she hasn't taken up perpetually smoking MJs. She rambles when I'm with her. She's not the same. I'm sure you know what happened with my two other friends."

"Yes, I know what happened with Mark and Lynette. Mark carried out a suicide attack against a Change Medical Center. Lynette ran off into the abandoned zone where, after fighting off a few rape attempts, she led all the women in the abandoned zone on a mass execution of the rape gang terrorizing them. We in the elite are a bit worried about her. She has potential as a future revolutionary leader. For now we will just watch and wait. We are not in the habit of preemptive assassinations, as were certain political figures of the era before the one-world state. Your friend is in no danger as long as she refrains from involvement in any types of terrorist attacks. We in the elite are not bloodthirsty. In fact, we do everything possible to prevent violence."

"That leads me to another result of 'The Change.' Once people have undergone 'The Change,' they seem incapable of strong emotions. Changed adults can feel annoyance, but not rage. Changed adults can feel affection, but not love. Changed adults can feel dislike, but not hatred. It's all proportionate, however, I suspect. If someone was a total psychopath and a future mass murderer, 'The Change' might not be enough to completely eliminate strong emotions in that individual. 'The Change' is enough, however, to create a world-wide environment of passivity and lack of interest in matters of governing. 'The Change' does an excellent job of creating apathy."

"Your analysis is excellent as far as it goes, but you have overlooked one thing. We in the elite never wanted everyone to submit to 'The Change.' Once individuals have been through 'The Change,' they lose their creative and inventive instincts. We have always insisted that 'The Change' was voluntary. We need the most intelligent, the most creative, the most inventive of us to refuse 'The Change.' Our society is rotting, stagnating. Since 'The Change' was invented, there have been almost no technological innovations. Yet our population continues to increase slowly and steadily. The system is starting to creak. To prevent collapse, we will have to start taking drastic measures of questionable morality. We have also had no new entrants into the ruling elite since 'The Change' was invented. You are the first new entrant, as you already know, to the elite database. The ruling class is getting old. Our system is a republic of the most intelligent and creative. We need new, young entrants to the ruling class."

"Yes, when I saw that password, and you told me that the body could become a password, I realized that I was being drafted for the ruling elite."

"Your body is now active as a password. You can enter any elite controlled area simply by passing in front of a scanner. Have you figured out precisely what 'The Change' is?"

"A way to preserve the social peace?" I asked.

"That's only part of it," said the Doctor. "This is the one state secret that you, as a member of the elite, must never reveal. The secret is that 'The Change' is an intelligence test. It is a way of excluding from political influence the weak-minded, the gullible, the short-sighted, the self-absorbed, the selfish, the greedy, the psychopaths. The world of the previous era was ruled by a tiny handful of utterly selfish psychopathic plutocrats whose lust for profit was destroying the world climate. The plutocrats' insistence on continuing to profit from fossil fuels guaranteed a runaway greenhouse effect in the future. We, the scientists, the engineers, the intellectuals, had been infiltrating the military services of every nation-state in the world for decades. We realized we could wait no longer. We staged a world-wide coup simultaneously in all countries, and threw the plutocrats out of power. We shifted power generation in the direction of non-carbon-based renewable resources. Look around you in any big city. You see hail-proof solar panels everywhere. We did that. We nationalized all the huge multinational corporations, and put them to use to supply goods and services based on need. The only currency in our world was to be the luxury credits with which you are now familiar."

"You developed 'The Change' as a way to exclude idiots from political power? It was a form of self-deselection from political influence?"

"Yes," said the Doctor. "No rational, intelligent, thinking person would submit to 'The Change' without knowing in advance absolutely everything that it did to the body and mind."

"Then the lure of a perpetually young, beautiful body turned out to be a lure that was far too effective?"

"We underestimated the stupidity and short-sightedness of the human species. And now we are headed for a crisis because of it."

I slumped back in my chair. I had seen pieces of the puzzle, but I had missed the most important part. The possible futures that I had imagined for myself had all just exploded and were floating down as particles with all the significance of dust in sunlight.

End of Chapter 15

This story is based on the Twilight Zone episode "Number 12 Looks Just Like You!" Viacom holds the copyrights.


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16: "Trip Like I Do"

My preconceived notion of a dictatorial, oppressive government herding unwilling people into a medical procedure that they did not want had just blown up in my face. It was the parents, the teachers, the media who all pushed "The Change" on graduating high school students. Most of the public wanted "The Change," and the herd effect and peer pressure combined to coerce most of the uncertain into acquiescence. It wasn't the government that was the problem: they already understood that too many people were choosing to undergo "The Change." The only sources of potential entrants to the ruling republic of the brightest and most creative were the noshows and the runners. Those two groups were too suspicious and distrustful to want anything to do with the government. The problem was the public. I, myself, had more reason to fear the public, some of whom had labeled me a traitor, than I did to fear the government.

What to do? I suggested that free basic necessities had eliminated most of the reasons why crime took place. "Is it still necessary, in a world of universal access to the basics of life, that we partially lobotomize young people the moment that they enter adulthood?" I suggested to the doctor that we eliminate "The Change."

"Oh, no!" said the doctor. "That would be the one thing that actually could provoke a revolution. We could never take back 'The Change' without provoking an enormous backlash from most of the public. And then there is the fact that the worst crimes that take place are not theft. Ending 'The Change' would bring back old atrocities."

"And what would those old atrocities be?"

"End 'The Change' and its emotion-blunting effects and we would be back to the bad old days before the one-world state. We would have fundamentalist Muslim fanatics throwing acid into the faces of unveiled women, murdering willful daughters in the name of family honor, cutting the noses and ears off teenaged girls who had run away from arranged marriages, and executing any woman stupid enough to complain of rape to the police for adultery. We would have fundamentalist Christian fanatics blowing up abortion clinics and supporting racist bigotry. We would have Catholic fanatics supporting fascist movements in the name of family, tradition, and property. We would have Israelis and Palestinians at each others' throats again. We would have worldwide discrimination against language minority groups again. We would have tribal groups cutting off parts of women's genitals again in the name of tradition. Rape would become commonplace, and jealousy as a reason for murder would return. Eliminating 'The Change' would be like shaking a champaigne bottle. The cork would blow off."

I was speechless. I was completely unfamiliar with quite a few of the atrocities that he had just mentioned. "So what to do?" I asked.

"What we in the elite must do is find a way to convince the brightest and most creative to come in to their consultations to be scanned instead of running off to the abandoned zones or simply not showing up. We must regain the trust of the most skeptical."

"And how do we do that?" I asked.

"I don't know," said the doctor. "None of us in the elite knows the answer to that question."

I left my consultation with my head aching, and stopped into a coffee shop for a latte. I walked out the door and my head began to spin at the world I saw around me. Gleaming glass and steel buildings. Stores and shops all around me selling luxuries and giving away basic goods for free. The luxury goods were advertised in the windows in glossy advertisements showing shiny, happy people enjoying their new purchases as if consumption of luxury goods was the whole point of life. Advertisements in the windows of banks advised people to save their luxury credits for the purchase of a new car or a vacation to exotic places. Once again shiny, happy, smiling people enjoying the privileges of wealth and status. Magazines sold by a street seller had pages and pages of advertisements for all sorts of new electronic gadgets. There were more pages of advertisements than there was of content.

I took a few sips of my latte, and purchased a single MJ from a street seller. "Highest quality!" he bragged. "Straight from the bluegrass region of Kentucky!" He lit my MJ for me, and I took a few puffs. I had never smoked an MJ before. This one had a filter to block most of the tar. I coughed a few times, took a few more puffs, and then a cool, breezy light-headedness overtook me. The world of bright colors vanished to monochromatic shades of gray. Everywhere I looked, the advertisements disappeared, and blunt slogans in simple lettering on rectangular posters stared back at me. "Marry and Reproduce," said a poster in a department store window. "Work for Luxury Credits and Buy," said another poster in a bank window. "Climb the Ladder to Success!" exhorted another poster. "Watch TV and Age!" advised a poster in the window of an appliance store. "Surf the Internet and Kill Your Life One Hour at a Time!" exhorted a poster in the window of the coffee shop where I had bought my latte. "Consume, Age, and Die," was a poster in the window of a furniture store. I tossed my empty paper cup into a public trash can, and walked back into the coffee shop for another latte. The luxury credits that I took out of my wallet had simple writing to accompany the numbers signalling their value: "I am God." At that moment, I realized the entire purpose of life in this new society, this brave, new world: accumulate luxury credits and buy. That was it. That was all.

I walked out into the street with my second latte in my left hand and my MJ dangling from the fingertips of my right hand. Rain had just started to sprinkle. I looked up into the rain and understood, at that precise moment, the sum total of my life.

"I am empty."

The End

This story is based on the Twilight Zone episode "Number 12 Looks Just Like You!" Viacom owns the copyrights.


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17: "The Closing Credits"

"The Flesh Failures / Let the Sun Shine In" by Galt MacDermot

We starve-look

At one another

Short of breath

Walking proudly in our winter coats

Wearing smells from laboratories

Facing a dying nation

Of moving paper fantasy

Listening for the new told lies

With supreme visions of lonely tunes

Somewhere

Inside something there is a rush of

Greatness

Who knows what stands in front of

Our lives

I fashion my future on films in space

Silence

Tells me secretly

Everything

Everything

Manchester England England

Manchester England England

Eyes look your last

Across the Atlantic Sea

Arms take your last

embrace

And I'm a genius genius

And lips oh you the

doors of breath

I believe in God

Seal with a righteous kiss

And I believe that God believes in Claude

Seal with a righteous kiss

That's me, that's me, that's me

The rest is silence

The rest is silence

The rest is silence

[Singing]

Our space songs on a spider web sitar

Life is around you and in you

Answer for Timothy Leary, dearie

Let the sunshine

Let the sunshine in

The sunshine in

Let the sunshine

Let the sunshine in

The sunshine in

Let the sunshine

Let the sunshine in

The sun shine in...

"Perfect Life" by Red

You pretend to what you say you feel

You pretend that you're something special

All your lies that you hide behind

I see right through you

See right through you

Paint it on, cover every inch

Any flaw will expose your weakness

I'm immune to your fantasy

I won't become you

Won't become you

You want a perfect, perfect life

Nothing wrong, nothing real inside

All I see is a perfect lie

I don't want your perfect life

I don't want your perfect life

So keep your dream with no consequence

You damage me just to feed your senses

All your fake for reality

I see right through you

See right through you

Take your pride, take your vanity

Can't you see that your ego's empty

I will turn, I will walk away

I won't become you

Won't become you

You want a perfect, perfect life

Nothing wrong, nothing real inside

All I see is a perfect lie

I don't want your perfect life

I don't want your perfect life

My eyes are wide open

I see the enemy, the hypocrisy

Your cover is fading

Secrets pouring out, castles falling down

Nothing to hide behind

I know who I am inside

I'm perfectly broken

You want a perfect, perfect life

Nothing wrong, nothing real inside

All I see is a empty lie

I don't want your perfect life

I don't want your perfect life

I don't want your perfect life

I don't want your perfect life


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter 18: Author's Notes

"Number 13 Looks Just Like You!" is a story that I have had in my head for years. I didn't write it down because I knew just how few people would read it all the way to the end. Mkaz gave me a kick in the fanny when he began writing a story based on the same Twilight Zone episode. I thought that it was finally time to write the story down even if it was likely to be read by very few people. The Twilight Zone is a dead fandom. I wrote this story for posterity.

The alert will have noticed numerous references to famous works of fiction and famous science fiction movies. Like the "Number 12 Looks Just Like You!" episode, my story is an offshoot of the famous novel "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley. I even used the words "brave, new world" in the last chapter of the story. My mention of "runners" was a deliberate reference to the movie "Logan's Run," and my mention of the "abandoned zones" was a deliberate reference to both "Logan's Run" and the original "Planet of the Apes" movie – the one with Charleton Heston. The finale of the story contains an homage to the famous "Sunglasses" scene of John Carpenter's "They Live" which is probably the most left-wing film ever to come out of Hollywood. Not even "The Matrix" and "V for Vendetta" were as savage in their depiction of free-trade capitalism.

The Alderaan Cafe is one big homage to the Star Wars movies. The Cafe is named after Princess Leia's home planet which was destroyed by the Death Star. The Yoda posters were my creation. There's a video game reference in the story. If the entrance to the secret, underground level of the Alderaan Cafe sounded familiar, that's because it was deliberately modeled after the entrance to the Duchess' home in the video game "American McGee's Alice."

If anyone is still wondering about Fenny after "The Change," no, he's not a robot. His chess-playing ability suffered from the generalized loss of creativity which results from "The Change." The twelve original female models all sort of look alike because they were all fashion models – ultraskinny fashion models complete with obligatory breast implants, liposuction, and nose job.

The use of song lyrics to simulate music was an experiment. I visualized the entire story as a full-length movie with a musical soundtrack in certain scenes. As I wrote the scene where Alice meets Amy after "The Change," I could practically hear the Zombies playing "She's Not There" in the background:

Well let me tell you 'bout the way she looked

The way she'd act and the colour of her hair

Her voice was soft and cool

Her eyes were clear and bright

But she's not there

I deliberately delayed revealing the name of my protagonist. Lynette finally reveals the name of the protagonist in conversation in the Alderaan Cafe's secret underground section in Chapter 8. I hope everyone was wishing that the Alderaan Cafe really existed. I sure do!

It is my hope that the ending sticks in people's heads and refuses to go away. The consumer society is utterly soulless. American society has become so saturated in surrealistic manipulative advertising that most people naturally tune it all out. They seem unaware of the fact that we are living in a real-life Twilight Zone episode.

-Nikki Little on April 10, 2014


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